I came home from the vet’s to find a message on our answering machine. Roger has repeatedly stated “No more ferrets”, but he listened as I returned the call. This lady stated that her children were allergic to her ferret, and that she had to get rid of him. I asked a few questions and about all I learned was that he was a young boy.

I got directions to her home and Roger agreed that I COULD PICK HIM UP. As to whether or not we would keep him or find him another home was still up in the air. When I got to her home, I learned that this was at least his third home, and our home would be at least number four. I made up my mind that it would also be his last home.

It seems if I remember right, her brother-in-law got him from a newspaper ad, then he gave him to her, and she felt she could no longer keep you. I also learned that she was giving him a bath every day. Her children gathered around us wanting to hold him, and I could not see any kind of allergic reactions, although she refused to let them hold him reminding them of their allergy problems.

She had gotten my phone number from the local pet store, and the owner said that she had gotten the impression that this lady was ready to just turn him loose in the wild. I am sure glad that I didn’t let this happen to him.

One look at his sad eyes was enough to make anyone fall in love with him. To us, he is a very sweet, beautiful light sable boy with the Marshall Farms tattoos in his ear.

I was offered his few possessions, but all I took was the food, which she said was all you would eat. I ended up combing the food stores to figure out what kind of food it was, and needless to say, it was a cheaper cat food. I combined this with the ferret food, and slowly got rid of the cat food. It took a couple of months to do it. I also figured out that you were used to eating peoples’ junk food, even soda crackers.

He spent a long time with his own smaller cage because I have a couple of ferrets that still today, really rough him up when they can. But he is a fighter when he feels threatened. I had let them go at it many times, but with watching him closely a couple of months ago, I decided to get him a thorough check up. I suspected possible insulinoma and adrenal.

The blood work only showed insulinoma, and he was scheduled for surgery. I have changed vets (another long story), and this was the new vet’s very first surgery on a ferret. He ended up not taking anything from the pancreas, even though I had insisted that he was to do so. He did find the left adrenal enlarged, and a nasty looking item, which turned out to be a lymph node attached near the pancreas.

The biopsy came back as lymphoma with a poor prognosis. I have researched the archives of the FML and the FHL, and with the blood work not showing a problem with the lymph nodes, I am not taking the report overly serious. He is on medication for both problems (same medicine), and is being closely watched by me, and the vet. I will be asking for another thorough blood test before long to see if there is a possible lymphoma problem.

I can only wonder about his early treatment, and about the cheap food he was eating. I can imagine that the poor food could now be a contributing factor to his health problems. And this little guy did not know how to be a ferret. He has never tried to bite, but does not like hands. He’ll give kisses to be put down, and tries to squirm away whenever hands touch him. Now if he is in a bag, or tunnel, he will let me play with him. And before he showed symptoms of being sick, he had even learned to do a war dance. I actually cried the first time I saw him dance.

He is quite a little beggar, wanting cheerios for a treat. Since recovering from surgery, he still begs for the cheerios, he just doesn’t eat them. Instead, he puts them in his food dish. Needless to say, the others don’t mind eating his stash.

It took him about four months to decide that he just might have a permanent home. Around this time, he lost the sad look in his eyes. He finally decided that he was loved, although he still doesn’t want to be touched, I feel that he loves us in return. He now knows that if I put him in his cage at feeding time, I will be back shortly with his "soup", and he patiently waits on it. I can only hope that he has a lot of good time left, but whatever time is left, it will be the very best that I can give him.

ferretmom@modempool.com

ferretlover97@yahoo.com